Lament for the living
by Acajou Amarth
Summary: No one is there for Peyton's funeral. Except maybe for the one person who makes her want to be alive again. Pre-Season 1 Leyton Oneshot.


**Summary: No one is there for Peyton's funeral. Except maybe for the one person who makes her want to be alive again. **

**Rating: T for death**

**Setting: Pre-Season 1 **

**Disclaimer: Not even close to being mine. Or do you see any Leyton in Seasons 7 and 8? **

**A/N: A Leyton story I wrote a while ago. I'm really unsatisfied with the ending, but I now realize I will probably never work on it again, so I might as well publish it the way it is. It's not completely horrible and I rather liked the idea. Plus, the title's too good to go to waste. Enjoy and don't flame.**

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><p><em><strong>Lament for the living<strong>_

No one was there. Not her father, not Brooke, not Nathan, not a single class mate or even a teacher. It was her freakin' _funeral _and no one had bothered to show up.

Peyton Sawyer stood there with arms crossed and the wind blowing through her hair, her feet touching the grass but not feeling it. She had on her favorite green shirt, that beloved leather jacket of hers and the new jeans she had been looking forward to wearing. Decidedly not the clothes her corpse had been dressed in.

Her body had been forced into a simple white dress and a silver necklace had been clasped around her neck. Her curls were neatly arranged to form something akin to a halo around her head and her face was covered with make-up that made her look too healthy; red, red lips, mascara and a blush across her cheeks.

She wished she could yell at them. This was not the way her funeral was supposed to go.

The priest a lone figure patiently waiting for someone to attend her service – in vain. Her dressed up like a doll and buried without her favorite clothes or at least one of her LPs. And heaven forbid if there'd be a representative of any kind of church whatsoever.

It was ridiculous, really. This was a scene that could have been right out of the fifteen hundredth 'A Christmas Carol in Prose' movie. The moment in which the Spirit of Christmas Future led the lead to their own grave and said lead broke down with remorse and swore to lead a better life from now on, if only they got to live a little while longer.

But it wasn't Christmas and there were no spirits around her. Besides, she had led a good life. Maybe not a life to be proud of, but certainly none to be ashamed of.

Okay, she knew why nobody was there. Her father was stuck on that dredging boat due to impossible weather, Nathan was mad at her for being so careless with her life and Brooke felt responsible for surviving the crash when her best friend hadn't. As for the rest of the people she fleetingly knew, she wouldn't have wanted them to come, anyway. Why would she want any hypocrites at her funeral? They hadn't known her, not really, and any grieve they might feel because of her death was fake or at least had nothing to do with Peyton Sawyer.

Then someone came. Actually, he didn't just come, he came running. Out of breath, he finally reached her grave and asked the perplexed, but relieved priest:

"Did I miss it?"

"No, son. You're the only one who's turned up.", the priest answered.

It took Peyton a moment to recognize who it was that actually dared to show his face on her funeral.

It was that other Scott boy, Lucas. Nathan's half-brother, who was a sort of social pariah in the Tree Hill due to being the illegitimate son of Dan Scott. He hadn't put on a tux, which she strangely appreciated, but wore simple dark jeans and a light blue shirt. It looked ridiculously good on him. His blond hair was a mess and he was still breathing hard.

He looked like an angel.

But what the fuck was he doing here?

She'd never had any sort of contact with him.

"May I ask whether you're friend or family, Mr…?", the priest asked.

"It's just Lucas. And I suppose I'm neither. I just… knew her."

And that was when he opened a bag he had been carrying with him and took out her leather jacket.

If she still had any, he would most certainly have taken her breath away.

"I kind of broke into her house to get those, but since her dad's still out of town, I didn't think anyone would mind. I think she'd want to be buried with these."

"That's the leather jacket she always wore, wherever she was and no matter whether it was summer or winter."

"Those are some of her colors. She was always drawing stuff. I think she would have wanted to paint her coffin, but I kind of can't, so…"

"And that's most of her LPs on MP3. It took me a bit too long to put them on the player, that's why I was late."

"It's kind of silly, but I knew I wanted to marry her when I was in eighth grade. I never said anything to her. I always waited for it to happen, but I never got around to talking to her."

And it was in that moment that she realized she had been waiting for him to talk to her, too.

And that it had been stupid to drive too fast.

And that she'd choose to go back, if she could.

And so she did and eventually, the 'someday' written across Lucas Scott and Peyton Sawyer's forehead became true.


End file.
